Human Rights, Motherhood, Reproductive Exploitation … and Adoption

January 13, 2010

This is a post about human rights.   Rights that we all enjoy because, well, we are human beings and not tadpoles, buttercups, or granite slabs.  We are born human, and in a special position in the world even if we share most of our DNA with a host of other similar creatures.

Humans have the ability to commit both magnificent acts of good and terrible acts of evil.  In the mid-20th century, the world was recovering from a horrific world war and related events of genocide and destruction, which had ripped apart families and left much death and suffering in their wake.

A coalition of “civilized” nations swore that this evil should never happen again, and worked to create what became the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,  adopted and proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations ion December 10, 1948.

Included in the Universal Declaration are rights that are belong inherently to all living human beings.  They include rights to dignity and equality, the right to be free from slavery, and the right to equal protection of the law.  Also included in the Universal Declaration are rights  that protect even the most vulnerable of our citizens  from systemic cruelty and exploitation.  Rights that our governments try to conveniently forget.

A mother and her child together are one of the  most precious and yet are often the most vulnerable families in any society.  Vulnerable, that is, because in some cultures, they are rendered without protection from external forces that work to separate them. In many patriarchal nations, a mother is often only certain that she will be able to keep her baby if:  (1) she is married and thus financially/socially protected by a man, or (2) she has sufficient status  in the employment market such that she can independently support her baby by herself.

Men and women are equal, but due to biology they are very different, an example being when two people of the opposite sex make love.  The man can walk away from his responsibility for any resulting child — he may not even know he is a father.  The woman cannot walk away.  She must deal with the consequences in a directly personal way.  During her pregnancy,  social sanctions limit not only her options, but stigmatize her into solutions that society either provides or withholds from her.  A baby is a part of her body for nine months, and that experience is one she can never walk away from.

To be a woman means the inherent capability (or implied capacity) to create and give birth to a child.

“Making the decision to have a child – it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart walking around outside your body.” – Elizabeth Stone

Human rights factor into the experience of every woman who becomes pregnant.   Firstly, human rights are universal, guaranteed to all human beings.  Article 2 of the Universal Declaration states:

“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”

Article 16 states:

“The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.” A mother and her child together is a family. There can be no doubt, and no argument, about this. They thus have the right to protection by society and the state.

But perhaps most explicit is Article 25, which states:

“(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. 2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.”

This explicitly provides every family — every mother and her child — with the support and means required to keep them together, as a basic human right.   It also means that women have the right to social protection, the right to keep their children, without having to be the “social property” of a man  (did you know that until very recently, in many areas the birth certificates of the children of unmarried mothers were stamped “Illegitimate”?).   It means that marriage is not required to “legitimize” a woman fulfilling the natural function of her body, a natural function of being a woman:  giving birth to her child.  Marriage or at least a long-term parental commitment from both partners is indeed the ideal situation, but for many mothers it is just not feasible or possible.

This Declaration agreed to in 1948 protects all mothers and their children.  It provides mothers with rights such that no mother need be forced by poverty, coercion, or social pressure to surrender her baby for adoption. Every mother has the right to protection and social support for herself and her child as a family unit such that horrific trauma of surrender, the coerced separation from her infant,  is not inflicted upon her.

“Almost everyone believes that on some level, [mothers] made a choice to give their babies away. Here, I argue that adoption is rarely about mothers’ choices; it is, instead, about the abject choicelessness of some resourceless women.” (Solinger, 2001).

It is clear that if the basic human rights of ALL mothers were respected, protected, and codified into the laws of each nation, that there would be far fewer unnecessary adoptions.  Fewer families would be destroyed, fewer mothers would be forced to surrender their beloved infants, and the world would be a far more ethical and safe place for mothers who are giving birth — mothers left vulnerable to the  adoption industry because their human rights have been violated.

* * *

References:

  • “Elizabeth Stone Quotes” at http://thinkexist.com/quotes/elizabeth_stone
  • Solinger, R. (2001). Beggars and choosers – How the politics of choice shapes adoption, abortion, and welfare in the United States. New York: Hill & Wang.

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Adoption separation: A tragic end for one natural family

November 11, 2009

I have a friend, Rowena, who is a natural mother who lost her son to adoption.

Rowena was only 17 when she gave birth to her son Blaise, and in Grace Hospital in Calgary, they only allowed her to see him sparingly for few days after his birth, and then one day the nurses took him away and refused to let her see him ever again. That was the power that hospitals had over us unwed mothers. The professionals around us, often government social workers, we trusted as no-one else showed any care for us. Little did we know of our rights to our babies – the same as the rights of any older or married mother – or that the hospitals’ actions were illegal. Beaten down emotionally and psychologically, and often cast away into exile by our parents and society, we did not know we had any rights at all.

So, in 1967, Rowena’s son was born. And the government social worker that came with the surrender papers made her believe that her only option was to sign, that an unwed mother could not be a mother at all. The growing list of “waiting parents” was more important to the worker than the emotional trauma she was doing by dismembering this one young family. Rowena wanted to keep her baby, and he was taken from her.

Because of the traumatic loss of her son, Rowena never had another child. She yearned for him for what seemed like unending years, thinking of him every single day, and doing what she could to deal with the PTSD and unrelenting grief.

As soon as Alberta set up an adoption reunion registry, Rowena signed up for it. Her name was on that registry for over twenty years as she waited to hopefully find Blaise again. All she had known was that he was supposedly adopted into a “good home” with a stay-at-home mother and a professional father.

Rowena began coming to our monthly Origins Canada support group meetings early this year, and we offered to help her find her son. Thanks to adoption records opening in Alberta (after a hard-fought campaign by people separated by adoption), she was able to apply for and obtain her son’s full adoptive name.

The search began in March 2009, and forty-two years after Rowena lost her son to adoption, he was found again!

The break came when we found Blaise’s adoptive family’s genealogy listed online, including an adoptive sister, “Alice.” We found her in the phonebook, and Rowena phoned her.

Yes, it was the right Alice. Yes, her adoptive brother was Rowena’s son. But, no, Rowena could not contact him as he was a drug-addicted homeless person living on the streets of a city far away. The sister promised to pass on the message to him, if he eventually got a contact number.

Eventually, when Blaise got a temporary cellphone, Rowena and Blaise were finally able to talk on the phone. He told her how his adoptive parents had divorced when he was young, and his adoptive mother was cold and distant. He had little contact with the adoptive father. No, Blaise had not graduated from high school. Yes, he was doing hard drugs, and when Rowena asked what drugs he used, he told her, “Anything I can get my hands on.” Rowena was shocked that her beloved son had been treated this way and was in this state, as she had been forced to surrender him by a system that had told her that these parents were fit and deserved her son more than she did.

Rowena and Blaise talked on the phone three times, when he was able to temporarily get a phone. By the second call, he was calling her “Mom,” and hoping to travel out to the coast to visit her and even live with her. He wanted to start a new life. Rowena offered to send him the bus fare for him to come out.

Rowena sent letters and photographs to Blaise through Alice. Unfortunately, Alice and her family opened up Rowena’s mail to Blaise, which hurt Rowena a lot.

In her third and tragically last phone call with Blaise, Rowena was happy to find that he had finally received the photographs and letters.

In early October, a phone call came from Alice. Blaise was in hospital with a serious heart infection, and Alice said that if Rowena wanted to see Blaise she had better hurry out to Edmonton fast. Alice offered to put up Rowena at her place. Rowena bought the tickets to travel the 1300 km trip and packed her bags, but 20 minutes before she left the house, the phone rang. It was Alice, who told Rowena in an angry voice that she “couldn’t have Rowena staying there” and that she would have to stay elsewhere.

Rowena phoned the hospital to find out how her son was doing. The staff there told her that they were not allowed to release any information, other than to people on the visitors list, and she was not on it. The adoptive father was in charge of the list. Even if Rowena had travelled, she would not have been allowed to see her son.

Last week, the final phone call came. Blaise’s adoptive father told Rowena that her son had passed away. When she asked, he stated firmly that, NO, she was not permitted to come to the funeral, as “They had enough people already.”

Thanks to adoption, Rowena never saw her son nor held him in her arms since his birth 42 years ago. Thanks to adoption, she will never have that chance. The adoptive parents had the right to ensure she would never be able to be there in his final days. Rowena is devastated. The hope of reunion with her son, the hope that sustained her for 42 years, has ended.

I write this post in dedication of the love that Rowena and Blaise had for each other, as mother and son. She never forgot her son. I hope that I am not the only one who sees the tragedy here.

If you are a mother considering the surrender of your newborn infant, please realize that you are losing the right to ever see your beloved child again. Even open adoptions may close at any time (they are not legally enforceable), and not only will you not have the right to see your child, but not even the right to know about his or her welfare. That is a right only the adoptive parents have, and even if your child is an adult — as next-of-kin — they have the right to deny all information or contact to others in case of a medical emergency. Adoption loss is a tragedy in so many ways. Please consider if you can live with this loss as well.

In Memory of Blaise
1967-2009
Loved and missed by your natural mother, Rowena,
even since you were born

This is a true  story about a natural mother and her son, and how forced adoption separation led to a heartbreaking tragedy.  Every time a mother and child are forced apart for adoption purposes, it is a tragedy; but for Rowena, the hope of seeing her son again was forever lost.

See Rowena’s article “Reunion Attempt“

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February 20, 1980

February 21, 2009

… a seventeen year old with no-one to talk to and no-one who would listen to me.

… parents are 62 and 61 years old … small town Prairie mentality and Fundamentalist beliefs.

… internment in a wage home once I began “showing,” hiding my growing belly to protect my parents from the shame of “what would the neighbours and relatives say?”

… being shamed by my parents into wearing my grandma’s wedding ring to hide my shameful “unwed” status from the world.

… a week of false labour.

… my parents dropping me off at the hospital slightly past midnight, and the nurses telling them to leave. Being put on a gurney and given a sleeping pill to sleep, then put into a closet for the night. Lights on. The pain was strong and the sleeping pill did nothing for me. Awake all night. Alone.

… strapped down to a bed with a fetal monitor wrapped around my stomach. Another one screwed into his scalp.

… my mother coming in the afternoon to sit with me, acting ashamed, never showing concern or affection.

… screaming in pain … and being told by nurses to shut up.

… nauseated and disoriented from the straight Demerol injections that did nothing for the pain

… a doctor telling the intern that he had given me too much Demerol.

… 18 hours of labour with no food or water

… wheeled down the hallway

… climbing  onto the narrow delivery table,  as flat as an ironing board, my arms strapped down with leather straps, feet up in stirrups.

… trying to push out a baby  against gravity, not having slept for 36 hours … not having eaten for 24 hours … overwhelming pain.

… episiotomy sliced down with a deep 4-inch-long cut, without anaesthesia … sewn up again without adequate anaesthesia.  Permanent nerve damage.

… sheet put up in front of my face to prevent me from seeing him as he was born and whisked from the room, abducted.

… given a shot and waking up 18 hours later in a ward far far from the maternity ward and nursery, other end of the hospital, different floor.

… a huge huge sense of loss.

… my breasts bound up to prevent lactation.

… unable to walk for 2 days after.

… not allowed to see or hold my baby. Never being told I had the right to. No lawyers to explain to me that i had *any* rights at all. No nurse brought him to me

… finally allowed to look at him for about 5 minutes  in the nursery several days later, watched over by hawk-like nurses to prevent me from picking him up. I was not welcome there.  Seeing him confirmed for me what I already knew: that I loved him beyond all measure. I wanted to keep him.

….  a woman who had surrendered a baby 2 months prior being sent in to convince me to “do the right thing.”

… forbidden by parents from taking my baby home.

… never told about welfare or any other way to keep him.  At age 17 from a small farming town and a sheltered upbringing, I had no idea even what ‘welfare’ was.

… the social wrecker telling  me to sign or he’d be in foster care until I ‘decided’ to. Telling me that the children of unwed mothers grow up to be criminals.  Lying to me that I would “move on.” No informed consent, no other options, no choice.

I wanted to keep my baby. I was capable. I was never given the chance or the choice.

This is adoption. This was coercion.  I was nothing more than a convenient uterus to them, to take away another baby for adoption.This was done to thousands of unwed mothers across Canada for thirty years, until about 1988. There is nothing “voluntary” about “voluntary surrender.” A coerced “decision” is not a decision at all.

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Reproductive Exploitation

February 9, 2009

I am pleased to announce that this essay is being reprinted in the latest edition of “Opposing Viewpoints: Adoption“

Reproductive Exploitation
By Jess DelBalzo and Bryony Lake

In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood depicted a futuristic society in which fertile young women were held captive and used to bear children for sterile, upper-class wives. The scenario sounds extreme, but sadly, it is not as fictional as one might hope. Vulnerable young women fall victim to reproductive exploitation every day, even in our industrialized North American world.

Exploitation commonly occurs when a powerless group of individuals possesses something that other, more powerful individuals covet. It is nearly unavoidable in a capitalist society, where financial success is often achieved at the expense of innocent men, women, and children.

The exploitation of women, specifically, is not a foreign concept to most of us. For decades, human rights activists have rallied against deplorable working conditions, child prostitution, sexual slavery, and other devastating practices that abuse disadvantaged members of society. Why, then, has reproductive exploitation
been ignored?

In its most common form, reproductive exploitation is used as a tool of the billion-dollar adoption industry. Well-protected by donations from satisfied adopters, large payments from would-be adopters, and of course the religious and fundamentalist organizations that promote the industry, few people have the opportunity to understand adoption for the business it is.

Advertised as an alternative for infertile couples who desperately want to be “parents,” demand for children (and mothers to birth them) is high. Finding pregnant women who are eager to hand their newborn babies over to strangers is next to impossible, and so adoption workers have taken to using coercive tactics against young, poor, and otherwise vulnerable expectant mothers. These mothers-to-be are told that they are selfish if they express the natural desire to keep their children, told that they will quickly get on with their lives and bear other children when they are older/wealthier/married, told that there is no other option available to them. They are not informed of the devastating effect adoption often has on children, nor are they told of the damage adoption
will likely inflict on their own psyches. Adoption workers do not care about
the well-being of mothers or children, though they may put on a good act to
convince expectant parents that their motives are pure. They care about profits,
about the image their business is presenting to powerful, potential customers.
And there you have it: reproductive exploitation.

Consider how easily the following quotes about sexual exploitation can be altered to reflect the tactics of the adoption industry:

From http://www.caseyonline.org:

“Have you ever heard a child say, “When I grow up, I want to be a prostitute?” For children and youth, working the streets is not a choice. Their lack of life experience and naivety about where the road to the street leads precludes their ability to make a conscious, informed choice.”

Now, slightly re-worded:

“Have you ever heard a little girl say, ‘When I grow up, I want to be a birthmother?’ For children and youth, surrendering a baby to adoption is not a choice. Their lack of life experience and naivety about the pregnancy/motherhood continuum precludes their ability to make conscious, informed choice.”

And from http://www.mcf.gov.bc.ca:

“A sexually exploited youth is someone who is under the age of 18, who
has been manipulated or forced into prostitution through perceived affection and belonging, and in return receives drugs, narcotics, money, food and/or shelter.”

With a bit of re-wording:

“A reproductively-exploited youth is someone who is under the age of 18, who has been manipulated or forced into surrendering her baby through perceived affection, approval, and promises that the well-being of her baby depends on the baby being turned over to unrelated strangers at birth; and in return receives coverage of medical expenses, shelter, and promises that she can return to pre-pregnant life and will “get over it.’”

Of course, reproductive exploitation is not limited to women under the age of 18. Older women are equally at risk, especially when they are poor, unmarried and/or emotionally vulnerable. Just as older women can be sexually exploited, they too can be taken advantage of for their fertility.

Though reproductive exploitation has yet to be acknowledged in mainstream society, its existence cannot be denied. Millions of women have been exploited for their fertility in the past 50 years, and millions more will fall prey to such exploitation if measures are not taken to protect them.

As a society, we cannot ethically work to prevent sexual exploitation while allowing women to be exploited by another, equally violent industry. Fertile women who do not wish to become pregnant must be granted access to accurate information about sexual issues, pregnancy, and birth control, as well as access to contraceptives. Women who become pregnant either by choice or by chance must be treated with respect regardless of their age, financial situation, or marital status. They must be informed of their rights and given access to all available resources to help them raise their children. They must be armed with information about any decision they make. And above all, they must not be coerced, lied to, or shamed into believing that adoption is their only option. These protections against reproductive exploitation must be made into law.

Now-powerless fertile women will be empowered. Their children will be treated as human beings, rather than as “product” to be sold. The only loser will be the adoption industry – and when you look at it that way, everyone wins.

“In order to drive a car you must be of a certain age, to drink you must be a certain age, to have your own credit card or even your own bank account without parent signatures you must be a certain age, in order to join the army you must be of a certain age – yet government allows very young vulnerable single mothers to sign a legally-binding document handing over their own flesh-and-blood, another human life, to complete strangers.” – Claudia Ganzon, natural mom searching for the daughter she was separated from in 1982.

Copyright 2003 © Jess DelBalzo and Bryony Lake

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This is what it’s like.

January 6, 2009

This is from “Kathy’s Story” on the Exiled Mothers site. Read this and remember. If you have a child of your own, think about how much you love that child and have always loved that child, then picture that child ripped from your arms or your body and taken away against your will:

” … they had my arms tied to the side straps, as well as my legs were tied too. I couldn’t move. I remembered screaming at this point again, “I want to hold my baby” “Please help me.” They laid him down in the plastic see-through bassinet, and the doctor yelled out to the nurse, give me 100 cc’s of Demerol. Again, screaming along with my son, they injected the shot. This is still like it happened yesterday, I can remember every minute. This is post traumatic stress. I saw the nurse whip him up, and speedily run out of the room. My doctor’s words were: “Kathy, this is what’s best for you, it’s too hard for you to see your baby”. Within seconds I was out like a light.. I remembered waking up in the hallway, the next morning, next to the nurses station. I remembered waking up so frightened and scared to death. I felt like I was raped. Raped from life. Raped from my rights as a patient.”

This is what it was like. I know.

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Old Rich White Men

December 8, 2008

It is hard not to notice that the political leaders of this nation are old white men.* Yes, we have a few MP’s who are women (not many, and none in positions of power) and a few MPs from non-white minority groups, but all the rest are white men, including the leaders of the four federally-elected parties:

old-white-men

Even the contenders for the Liberal leadership, now that Dion is stepping down, are old white men :

more-old-white-men2

This is not a coincidence. Who has the resources, education, and influence to rise to the top of the political pyramid? Typically, the demographic in a society that has ready access to these resources. And this power imbalance shows even in the inequality of labour resouces within marriage:

“… Male politicians have wives who are full-time homemakers, or who adjust the hours and other demands of their work to the needs of their husband’s political careers. But few female politicians are endowed with similar husbands.”Norms, Values, and Society, by H. Pauer-Studer, p. 85)

But of course, most of us take this “white male face of power” for granted and assume it to be both generous and benign — even the women of this country, who are left to “choose” among these single-demographic leaders who claim they “best represent” them. It is no coincidence that daycare, housing for poor families, paid maternity leave, and other issues that concern women and impact their lives are given only token nods (if at all) in party platforms. Many women know that they are “one divorce away from poverty.” Many single mothers struggle in poverty trying to keep their children without them being apprehended when Mom has choose between feeding the child and paying the rent. Many moms are on waitlists for 3 or more years before finding daycare for their child, or have to return to full-time work just weeks after their baby is born, during the time their infant needs them (and NOT a stranger) most.

What do you need to get into power? The exact opposite qualities of voters who are some combination of young, female, poor, or don’t have a palid pink skin hue.

According to the The Global Gender Gap Report 2008, Canada is ranked 60th out of 130 nations surveyed in terms of women’s political empowerment. Only 22% of our elected MP’s are women, nowhere close to the 52% of Canada’s population that is female.

A report by the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women states that 30-35% women is the critical mass necessary before legislatures address women’s concerns through public policy reform and before political institutions begin to change the way they operate.

And ultimately, this mismatch, this exclusion of women and women’s issues from the national (and provincial) agendas, affects the power of women to keep and raise their babies. When it is assumed that the male model of parenting (birth-onwards rather that conception-onwards) applies equally to women, when it is assumed that women can walk away from their newborns as easily as many men do (evident in the number of women left to raise children as soles-supporting single mothers), then little recognition or support is provided in public policy for mothers who are left vulnerable due to youth, poverty, disability, social injustice, or marital status.

Here is a thought exercise for you: The next time you see an “old white man” in front of a TV camera in House of Commons, remember that women in Canada make up over half of our population. For every one of those men, there is a woman out there who is NOT in the “corridors of power.” What is she doing? Why is she not there?

The next time a political party phones you or knocks at your door asking for donations or support for their candidate, ask them about the issues that concern you most as a woman. Ask them about what they are doing about the plight of mothers who have been abandoned in our society and who are being forced to surrender their babies or children for adoption due to punitive welfare or employment policies. Think about how our nation can be forward-thinking in supporting mothers, looking to nations such as New Zealand and Australia for examples, where the number of infants surrendered by desperate mothers are a miniscule fraction of what they are here. If other nations can do it, so can we. But it likely won’t happen as long as our nation is run by rich old white men.

* Yes, Harper (49) and Dion (53) are actually “middle-aged,” but the rest are elligible for “Seniors Day” at Zellers. And the average age of all six is 57.

Related links:

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Andy and Marcie: An Adoption Story

August 15, 2008

(For those who have been touched by adoption (with a blow-torch), this story is pretty self-evident. For those with no experience or connection to adoption: this is an allegory about adoption, and mothers being convinced by agency workers that if they really loved their babies, they’d surrender them, that adoption is “the loving option,” and how it just does not make sense.)


Andy and Marcie: A Story

Andy met Marcie one afternoon over at Jim’s place. Jim had hosted a barbeque for his friends, and Marcie was the best friend of Jim’s sister Carla. Andy and Marcie immediately hit it off. Both were shy at first, and the conversation stumbled at times, but they laughed and joked together and felt comfortable in one another’s presence. They soon found that they had lots in common. They both loved the same sports (kayaking and hiking), going to hear the local symphony (both were season subscribers), and hated sushi.

After Jim’s party, it was a couple of weeks before either got the nerve to phone the other one up. It was actually Marcie who did, inviting Andy out to the symphony with her that Saturday — there was a special guest conductor in from Chicago. The evening went perfectly, and they went out for chocolate cake and coffee afterwards at the Mocha House Cafe, laughing and talking.

One date led to another, and soon both Andy and Marcie knew that they had never felt so close to another person, so comfortable, so “right.” They both accepted each other’s “faults” with good humour, had lots of fun together with family and friends, and found that not only was there romance but both became good friends. It wasn’t long until they moved in together and discussed commitment.

All seemed very natural, and all their friends were delighted for them. Everyone figured that Andy and Marcie were the perfect pair and would soon get married. In fact, Carla began to drop hints to her friend about being her maid of honour.

Nine months into their relationship though, after many days of joy together, Andy dropped a bombshell. With tears in his eyes, he told Marcie the news. He loved her so much that he had to leave her and he was moving out. Her faced turned white with shock, and she sat down on their couch in total numbness. This was not at all what she was expecting. When through her wracking sobs she asked him why, why she was losing the man she thought she would spend the rest of her life with” He replied with a choking voice that he was not good enough for her and the best thing he could do, the “loving option,” was to allow her to go to another man. No matter what she asked, that is what it came down to: “I am doing this out of love for you.”

As Andy walked out with his suitcase, he told Marcie the name of an intermediary who would pass on messages to him from her. He said that he still loved her and always would. But, he was firm that his counsellor said he had to “move on with his life” and “act like he had never met her.”

Marcie sat back. Did it make sense to love someone so much you had to leave them? When you could have spent your life together and everything was going so well? It was obvious to her: Andy did not love her at all, and this was just an excuse. Unloved, unwanted, she sat back in the apartment that felt so empty, and she cried.

Copyright 2008.  Contact the author for permission to reprint.

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Well, hi there!

August 9, 2008

Well, I guess you found this little blog. It is not my intention to write it to try to entertain, shock, or otherwise get you to come back to see the latest in hip news, rave reviews, or celebrity gossip (I’ll leave that to Perez Hilton to keep you satisfied).

Instead, if you frequent this site, you’ll be reading the writings of a mother and policy analyst, one who has analyzed her own experiences and those of other mothers who have experienced a unique form of violence. I will be posting articles that I have written in the past, and new articles as they develop in the future.

What you will find are analyses of such topics as the adoption industry, reproductive exploitation, and the abuse of vulnerable mothers. As well as my own personal experiences, and quotes from my favourite authors.

My name? How about just “Cedar’ for now.

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